Digging Up the Snow
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [Book: Translations in Celadon] [pre-epilogue] "Seeing a knife stuck in a guy's head really kills the theory that they died in an avalanche."


**A/N:** Written for the If You Dare Challenge, prompt#054 – Come Back Here. And 'cause there wasn't even a section for fanfics for Translations in Celadon before I emailed support. Seriously, there's two worlds of material to play with there.

Also written for the 5,10,20,50,70,100 fandoms challenge, fandom 6.

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**Digging Up the Snow**

**Prologue**

The snow was just a soggy mass of ice, clumps of frozen water lying in the waste of last week's avalanche. Somewhere underneath were the bodies of three students: tragic numbers stolen away in the harsh blizzard clouting the large camp.

No-one had expected the pre-winter to strike so harshly. They had imagined thin blankets of snow glittering atop trees, their leafy boroughs still visible and soaking up the fading rays of sun. They had imagined a lake with ice cold water and the glimmers of algae and small multicoloured fish below the surface, living out the last of their lives. They had imagined snowball fights and sledding and tales around the camp fire.

They hadn't expected an avalanche locking them into a terrifying night. They hadn't imagined it stealing three of their classmates away from them in the tumbling storm of white. They hadn't thought they'd be sent home, frozen tears biting their skin and wind blowing them a farewell of white and grey.

_He_ certainly hadn't expected to be sent up to no-man's-land at eight the next morning to try and dig up the cabin and its inhabitants.

'Is this a good idea?' his – somewhat doubtful sounding co-worker asked. 'There's no way anyone would survive being out in this for thirty-six hours, and digging around for bodies is just…' He trailed off, fishing for the right word while the shovel's metal biting his fingers even through the thick gloves he wore.

'Orders are orders,' he muttered in response, nudging some loose black hair back under the hood. His companion was luckier, having no such annoyances with the dots of yellow that littered his skull. 'The camp needs the place clear after all.'

'Building another cabin where an avalanche took the first one?'

'It does sound odd.' The man dug his own shovel into the ground, removing clumps of snow and putting them into the back of their truck. 'But no avalanche from the mountains should be able to get here.' He gestured at the landscape on the horizon, and the valley and frozen lake that lay in between. 'It's nature's foul-play, that's what it is.'

The other shivered. 'Don't talk nonsense.'

'Just don't talk at all!' the woman inside the truck yelled at them. 'I'd like to get home before the frostbite kicks in.'

They fell silent after that, shovelling mounds of snow into the truck and removing bits of wood that they unearthed in the process. It took them a solid hour's work and the sun glaring through their goggles before they came across a hand blue and slightly cracked from cold.

'Found one.' The black hair slipped out again before being nudged into position.

'Well, dig him out then,' the female ordered, backing the truck up a few paces and waiting, unwilling to risk accidentally maiming the body – the reason why her own work was so slow.

The two males dug slowly, jabbing the shovels tenderly into the snow until they unearthed the rest of the arm, then the shoulder, then the heard and part of the chest.

And then they stared, because instead of being blue all over and sleeping death they found eyes wide in a split second's surprise and a halo of red and purple trapping the small metal blade in the place of the hypothetical third eye.

The blond went pale, wondering if he was going to lose his breakfast and morning coffee to the snow.

'Seeing a knife stuck in a guy's head really kills the theory that they died in an avalanche,' the other muttered to himself, shaking his head.

'It could have been – when the cabin collapsed –'

'Maybe.' He was doubtful though; how much force did a knife need to lodge itself into someone's head and not get dislodged in an avalanche or by their shovels? He was banking on a fair amount.

'What are you two talking about this time?' The woman sounded rather annoyed at their lack of movement. 'Looking after a dead girl?'

'You might want to look at this, Boss.'


End file.
